Some of the most prominent Web 2.0 platforms in foreign politics are embraced by politicians in UK like @Downing Street on Twitter and Show Us a Better Way. But as our class revealed last Monday, digital campaigns overseas have not taken off as in U.S.
The Prime Minister’s Office in UK has almost 4,000 followers on Twitter. During Obama’s visit in Downing Street 10, the office updated the profile feverishly and facilitated a conversation:
Searching our class’ del.icio.us feed, I did not find any links to digital campaigns tagged as overseas. I did find two posts tagged international but they were not relevant in this case. UK and U.S. are the only countries in the tagcloud. One post was tagged UK, linking to the UK Parliament’s YouTube Channel. It is a pilot project. This feed is informational and tend to be conversational by interviewing typical constituents. But the conversation has not really started yet:
I am looking forward to see where the UK Parliament will take it. Will it feed one-way press briefings or engage in a two-way-conversation?
From my own little world, I experience huge interest of the American experience on digital campaigns. I know of 3 different groups coming from Copenhagen in the fall to learn more about microtargeting, fundraising, and political blogging.
Who Reports Gets to Write History
Garrett Graff mentioned again in his lecture China’s firewall, Al Qaeda’s extensive use of YouTube, and Alaa’s twittering to stay alive as examples of Web 2.0 platforms overseas. It reminds me again that free speech is not given all over the world, and who reports gets to write history. Social media can be a tool for expression in countries with no or limited free speech. It can also be a tool to broaden the political conversation and collaboration in democracies for local, regional, and national governments (more is coming on this point).
The Global Power of Social Media
This picture shows that the world is not flat – as Charline & Bernof state in Groundswell (p.49). It is the same desire to connect, create, and stay in touch – but it is not the same platforms that people use around the world.Facebook and MySpace are popular SNS in America, Orkut in Brazil and India, and hi5 in Austria, Mongolia, and Portugal. Furthermore, participation differs as well. In Groundswell, participation is divided into six categories: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Sepctators, or Inactives.
According to Groundswell (research by Forrester Research), Asians have in general adopted social media much more than Americans or Europeans. For illustrating, I have gathered the numbers that they mention in the book in the following table which is important for planning marketing, advocacy or political campaigns in different countries. (You can more numbers here).
Social Technographic Profiles Around the World
Profile
U.S
Europe
Asia
Creators
Blog, upload self made videos, music etc.
18 %
10%
38 % (South Korea)
Critics
Post ratings/reviews, comment on other’s blogs, contribute to online forums, contribute to wikis
25%
20%
36% (Japan)
Collectors
Use RSS, add tags to web pages or photos
10%
10%
18% China
14% South Korea
6% (Japan)
Joiners
Maintain a profile on a SNS, visit SNS
25%
12,5%
40% (South Korea)
Spectators
Read blogs, watch video from other users, listen to podcasts, read online forums, read customer ratings/reviews
48%
37%
33% (Japan and China)
Inactives
Do not participate in these activities
41%
53%
37% (South Korea)
(Charlene & Bernof, 2008, p. 43-45). Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2007. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.
NOTE: the percentage is of the online adult population!
Go and read the interview with Fekrat who is blogging from Kabul on Global Voices. Fekrat is also active in citizen media projects likethe social media site Afghan Press and Afghan Penlog, the Afghan Association of Blog Writers. The goal is to bring Afghans bloggers inside and outside Afghanistan to defend their rights. As Fekrat says in the interview:
“We don’t have free media in Afghanistan, but through blogging, journalists and other people who can’t (or don’t want to) use their real names in Afghan media can share their ideas.”
Fekret also says: “As you know, we don’t have online media to provide news to the world independently. Every day we hear bad news of explosions, suicide attacks, road bombings, killings, robberies in Afghanistan, but there is no one to provide information on social issues, women’s issues, education, music, literature, culture and Afghan traditions.When I read the news, I feel sorry for myself and wonder why our country and our people are defined as violent and tough people. I want to explain through Afghan Press that we are no different from the rest of the world; that we are forgotten, and you need to remember us today.”
On top of this, Afghan bloggers suffer from power outages several times a time. Fekrat describes how he writes his posts on paper, put it on a memory stick, and have to walk to somewhere else to get access to the Internet.I admire the courage of Nasim Fekrat to work hard and challenge the culture and the political system of his country. It takes more to blog from Afghanistan than blogging about Afghanistan – as a lot of the blogs I passed by today do.
Trust is one of the building blocks of our society and I have talked a lot of trust in Google on this blog. Another question based on trust in this class is: Should we trust Wikipedia or an expert-led encyclopedia more?The answer is very short. If you believe in Wikinomics and the Wisdom of the Crowd you should trust Wikipedia and not compare it to an expert-led encyclopedia because it is two different things. I am impressed by the correctness and prediction of mass collaboration through wikis. I am fascinated by the democratic ideals and practice that support deliberation, decentralization, and self-organization. Knowledge or the truth emerges from the clash of viewpoints (and maybe civilizations?) and the wisdom of the crowds – most of the time. It is this “most of the time” that makes me precautious because falsehoods are possible when everyone with his or her agenda can edit and manipulate an encyclopedia. I have not quoted Wikipedia or any other Wiki in my academic papers or in my professional work so far because of this. I have used it as a fast (wiki means fast in Hawaiian) lane to get information about a topic and then checked other sources. The question is of course how could Wikipedia be better set-up to better provide accuracy without turning into a traditional expert-led encyclopedia? Over the years, Wikipedia has changed the governance model to democracy with a bit of aristocracy and some monarchy thrown in. Comparing the principles of neutrality and good faith (remember Google’s truth not to be evil) and the organization with the practices in the Wikinomics Playbook it seems that in general Wikipedia is on the right track. It is important to have an organization and a leader that facilitate collaboration. The Wikipedia organization with contributors, administrators, bureaucrats, developers and the arbitration committee (plus the monarch Wales himself) promote collaboration and ensure consistency to the mission of Wikipedia. They might be bottlenecks from time to time but it has been necessary in order to preserve the mission to lock bitter discussions like the one between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004. Wikipedia has been compared to a restroom by a former editor of Encyclopedia Britannica: You never know who used it last. Well, just like using public restrooms you make your precautionary steps – using Wikipedia that means you never leave your critical thinking behind.
Some of the most prominent Web 2.0 platforms in foreign politics are embraced by politicians in UK like @Downing Street on Twitter and Show Us a Better Way. But as our class revealed last Monday, digital campaigns overseas have not taken off as in U.S. 
